Work Streams | HEARTH

Work Streams (WS) and Cross-cutting themes (CT)

WS1: Climate and weather scenarios for future net and non-net zero worlds

This workstream aims to produce new high-resolution weather and climate scenarios to assess extreme heat events and co-occurring hazards considering a range of climate mitigation pathways including net zero futures. It will create UK regional future climate scenarios for short, medium, and long timescales, aligned with global warming levels, offering uncertainty estimates and presenting results using figures and narratives linked to events like the 2022 heatwave. It will also quantify how heatwaves overlap with other extremes such as high humidity, flooding, poor air quality, wildfires, and drought, using hazard metrics to guide analysis. Finally, it will support the co-development of heat-health monitoring and warning systems using weather forecast information to create timely indoor heat health alerts for vulnerable settings.

WS2: Local outdoor environmental factors

The objective of this workstream is to quantify heat exposure variations for outdoor environments at city and neighbourhood scales to understand local climate and building interactions and the effects of urban heat reduction measures. City-scale outdoor temperature will be produced for case study cities, using mapped land categories and observations to assess adaptation scenarios. This will be refined to neighbourhood scale modelling to examine the microclimate impacts of interventions such as green and blue infrastructure and building materials on street level conditions. It will also assess how greenspace structure relates to microclimate and health using detailed green infrastructure datasets to create metrics of greenspace quantity and quality.

nursing home with old people sitting around in common area with too much sun coming in the

WS3. Indoor heat exposure and health inequalities in vulnerable settings

The objective of this workstream is to assess physical and mental health impacts and inequalities arising from indoor heat exposure in homes, care settings, prisons and hospitals. A library of building archetypes will be created using existing data and analysis of thermal characteristics. Empirical evidence base will be produced through monitoring and survey work in case study buildings to identify overheating risk using indoor sensors and surveys. For vulnerable groups, physiological measurements will be collected alongside mental health assessments during hot days. Interviews with operational teams and experts will capture the impacts of extreme heat on service delivery.

Generic illustration of Theory of change

WS4. Health impacts of existing climate mitigation/adaptation strategies

The objective of this workstream is to assess health and equity impacts of existing climate change mitigation and adaptation measures and develop an evaluation framework to inform local and national heat prevention policies. It will synthesise evidence on health protection measures, housing policies, and community interventions, focusing on effectiveness, co-benefits, and impacts on vulnerable groups. Stakeholder engagement will identify barriers, enablers, and implementation evidence. It will gather quantitative evidence on the integrated health and environmental impacts of existing interventions.

Awning shading above window of nursing home in england. people inside getting relief from

WS5. New climate adaptation-mitigation interventions and solutions

The objective of WS5 is to quantify the impacts of future (not implemented at scale) climate change adaptation and mitigation solutions in homes, care settings, hospitals, and prisons. It will evaluate interventions co-designed with stakeholders through modelling based on building archetypes and external conditions. Field observations will assess interventions being applied at scale by project partners. Finally, it will quantify the co-benefits and trade-offs of these solutions.

Generic illustration of a heat health metric graph

CT1. Novel indicators, metrics and tools

The objective of this cross-cutting theme is to develop indicators and metrics to inform decision makers and track progress to net zero and adaptation to extreme weather from local to national scales. It will co-develop new climate and urban environment metrics to quantify outdoor extremes and assess the effectiveness of urban heat reduction measures. It will add indoor exposure metrics for vulnerable settings and socioeconomic groups focusing on thermal comfort, cooling energy demand, and household energy costs. It will also create new public health indicators using outputs from all workstreams to track health inequalities and policy impacts under different warming levels.

Generic illustration of public engagement workshop with stakeholders

CT2. Stakeholder and public engagement

The objective of CT2 is to ensure that co-production and synergies underpin HEARTH. This will be driven by broad stakeholder engagement with over 150 stakeholders through interviews, mapping exercises, and workshops to map heat risk tolerance, assess indicator importance, identify barriers, and test solution narratives, supported by expert roundtables. Public engagement will include engagement with PPIE groups to shape intervention design and evaluation.

CT3. Knowledge exchange, capacity building and legacy

The aim of CT3 is to maximise knowledge exchange and capacity building and ensure HEARTH’s sustainability and legacy. It will deliver active knowledge mobilisation through a website, data platform, newsletters, and accessible research outputs, aligned with national initiatives. International engagement will include collaboration with global experts. Capacity building will include training for Hub members, mentoring for early career researchers, and training for stakeholders.